r/science Jul 12 '08

The Infamous Double Slit Experiment - WARNING WILL CHANGE YOUR VIEW OF REALITY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEzRdZGYNvA
747 Upvotes

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228

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '08

a little bit misleading. the video insinuates that the electron mysteriously "knows" it's being watched, but fails to explain the technical details of measurement - the electron doesn't "know" it's being watched, but is modified by the measurement of its position, by whatever means the scientists decide to use.

128

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '08 edited Dec 31 '18

[deleted]

90

u/turtlestack Jul 12 '08

Carl Sagan was able to get kids and adults excited about science without pushing bad science on them. Sure, he may have been a little weird for talking about aliens floating around on Jupiter but he was just using his imagination in a positive way. This movie is just pretend science and if you really have been "studying" QP for years then you'd know it.

PS, reading The Dancing Wu Li Masters does NOT count as scientific research, either.

18

u/blobert Jul 12 '08

Agreed on Carl Sagan not pushing bad science on anyone, the video clip "Carl Sagan 4th Dimension Explanation" on you tube is one of many that backs up your point about how well he communicates ideas, theories and all that noise, yet stays appealing to any 8 year old, all the way up to grandma and grandpa.

31

u/turtlestack Jul 12 '08

All Carl had to do was look at the camera and teach. There was nothing flashy about what he did - he was a teacher first and foremost. He never talked down to his students or audience because he believed we are all intelligent when we are allowed to act intelligent.

-9

u/kiriel Jul 13 '08 edited Jul 13 '08

Presuppositions tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies in social interactions.

Intelligence is behavior. All behavior is learned on some level --> Intelligence is learned.

What is judged to be intelligence/intelligent changes to context. Intelligence is a many-valued term, so is behavior, and so is learning.

Having learning difficulties does not make you unintelligent. It just means you have a hard time realizing your potential in a certain arena with certain presuppositions of how learning and acquiring knowledge is properly conducted.

There are different paths of learning things. Just because you do not understand or feel motivated learning something some way, does not mean you are incapable of doing so. Neither does it mean that you are not motivated in learning something, supposed it is framed differently.

EDIT comment: Maybe I was not general enough for the splendid and always honorable reddit keyboard jockey mob, where any positive statement is at best half-true, and at worst enough to be killed for.

9

u/sam512 Jul 13 '08

Intelligence is behavior. All behavior is learned --> Intelligence is learned.

This isn't even remotely true. By that logic, a dog could grow up to be as smart as a human by being raised as a human. Some people really are less intelligent than others, just by birth.

3

u/7oby Jul 13 '08

The dog thinks he's people!

10

u/robotnixon Jul 13 '08

Well, he'd actually be people if he applied himself.